Runday Playlist

One of my favorite parts of my week is making my long run playlist.* I used to DJ in college, and while I’m nowhere as cool as I once was, I still love digging out songs that will be the perfect mix of energizing and distracting. I also love seeing what other people listen to while they run, so in case I’m not the only one who likes creeping on people’s running music, I’m going to post my weekly playlists here.

Here’s today’s:

I love starting with a podcast, and Pop Culture Happy Hour is one of my favorites because it makes me laugh and because it lets me bring my old TV-writer persona out to play. Today, though, there was a long segment about TV music that focused on Friday Night Lights, and between “Devil Town” and the song that played over the final football game in the final episode, it’s possible I pulled over and ugly-cried somewhere between 30th and 41st in Golden Gate Park.

The standout of this particular playlist turned out to be “Stadium Love,” a song I’d kind of forgotten about until all of a sudden I was powering up my nemesis hill in the park wailing “no! one’s! get-ting out!” I only got about 15 minutes into the This American Life episode at the end, but it was perfect for the last couple of miles when I didn’t want to think about how close, and yet still far, from home I was.

* I listen to music or podcasts of some sort on probably 80% of my runs. I can run without, but in general — and especially on longer runs — I like having something to stop me from overanalyzing every bit of how I’m feeling. I also, frankly, just enjoy listening to music and podcasts, and I don’t tend to make enough time for that in other parts of my life, so it’s one more thing that gets me out the door and makes run-time feel special.